You have conveniently forgotten to list how much unusable/me-too/buggy/harmful/hostile software exists in the paid-app stores.

That was not the topic of the discussion. Your argument was,

Originally Posted by juiceme

In my opinion there hardly is any crap in FOSS utilities, instead there is elegance, scalability, stablilty and rock-solid design principles.

The fact that crap closed source software exists does not prove that all FOSS is full of "elegance, scalability, stablilty and rock-solid design principles."

Now when I think about it, seems that FOSS fartapps are tiny and relatively harmless subset of all that.

It has to be because you - maybe subconsciously - filter them out. Every time I go to Openrepos or Jolla harbour, I see about 20 fartapps for each useful app.

I'd rather think it is the other way around; there's lot less software in OpenRepos (or whatever equivalents exist) than for example in Debian main!

It took me a while to get what you meant by that. Did you mean that even if all Openrepos apps were fartapps, even then they would be just a small proportion of the entire FOSS landscape, because they would be vastly outweighed by e.g. Debian main? That is undoubtedly so, but then Debian also lists a lot of packages of questionable quality. In fact, my first disenchantment with free software came exactly from my experience with some packages offered by Debian

Whether the piece of SW is FOSS or closed source does not affect whether it is "a masterpiece of creation" however it might have an effect on whether it can be better;

The crucial word that you seem to keep latching on is can. Yes, open source has the potential to be improved by someone other than the creator, but how often does it happen in reality?

With commercial software, you have the same thing that you have with any commercial product: accountability. The product creator has an obligation to you, the buyer. With open source, you may consider yourself lucky if you get a response like this. Or like this, if less lucky.

You just cannot argue that it is easier to maintain closed source software.

I am not arguing that. I am not even arguing that non-FOSS is "better" than FOSS. I said that before and I am saying it again, and I am sorry that I seem to keep failing to get that across, despite stressing it every time. All I am saying is that any bad reputation FOSS has is largely justified. So is any good reputation, but yet again, that was not the topic of the discussion.

__________________In particle accelerators atoms are indeed not only touching each others. But banging together in a massive explosive orgasm.
-- nieldk in a TMO post

There's crap found in both camps. Fart apps? Some are open source. Some are not. Worthless attempts at being an office app? Yep, both camps havre those too. Face it, even with a governing body, some crap slips past every now and then.

But luckily enough, we have choices. And if it's open source, we can help those folks to make a better app. If it's closed and in a ecosystem that allows for comments - do so angrily yet informative enough that it's seen by a few people that might echo those sentiments before it's taken down.

Or something like that. I just know that I like having choices more than anything else.

The crucial word that you seem to keep latching on is can. Yes, open source has the potential to be improved by someone other than the creator, but how often does it happen in reality?

Actually, it can happen and on many cases it continuosly does.
I'm not talking about fartapps here, I mean the serious software that is used more and more to build up the world. Skilled people contribute all the time to worthy projects.

Originally Posted by pichlo

With commercial software, you have the same thing that you have with any commercial product: accountability. The product creator has an obligation to you, the buyer. With open source, you may consider yourself lucky if you get a response like this. Or like this, if less lucky.

Ahh, but here you now show up the mindslip! You subconsiously assume that when SW is FOSS it means it is non-commercial, smalltime, insignificant, hobbyist-driven!

As it happens, I work on FOSS in a commercial company. In reality I work exclusively on open source software and have been doing that for several years now. The company makes profit, so I have heard and I suppose it is true as they afford to pay me several thousand euros every month

As for FOSS small-hobbyist-apps that I use, I make it a habit of donating to the devs for the applications I use. And I donate more than the silly few dollars usually asked for in applicaton stores.
(But I also compile the sources myself, as a case in point; I could not use closed-source applications even if I wanted... it is a matter of principle.)